“Nice move,” I said quietly over my shoulder to Minerva, who simply nodded in response.
“We’re headed the same way,” Russell said. “Hey, let me introduce you to my roommate from school. Ryan!” he called out.
Ryan walked over to where Quinn and Dylan were standing.
“That’s him,” I whispered to Minerva. “My ex.”
“Whoa! Mr. Hottie,” she commented.
Ryan did look amazing. He was more muscular since the last time I’d seen him. His hair was a little longer, too, but I could still see his chocolate-brown eyes as clear as day. A twinge of sadness crept through me. Ryan had not only been my first love, but he’d also been my best friend for over two years. Just then, however, the memory of Ryan cheating on me flashed through my mind, and the sadness I’d felt a moment ago quickly turned to disgust.
“What’s up?” Ryan smiled.
“This is Quinn. We go way back.”
“Hey.” Quinn’s voice sounded a little strained, but he smiled just the same.
“Hey, good to meet you.” Ryan shook Quinn’s outstretched hand.
“Dylan.” Dylan shook Ryan’s hand, looking amused. I could only imagine the thoughts running through his head. I was sure he was enjoying every second of this.
“I hope Dylan behaves himself,” Minerva whispered.
“I hope they both do,” I mumbled under my breath anxiously.
“So,” Quinn began. “You go to U of I?”
“Yeah. What about you?”
“IU.”
“Oh,” Ryan said a little awkwardly and cleared his throat. “So, you grew up with Russ?” he asked Quinn.
“Yeah, you from around here?” Quinn asked innocently, despite already knowing where Ryan grew up.
“No. Michigan actually. Just visiting for the Fourth.”
“Nice. Where in Michigan?”
“St. Jo area.”
“Harbor Country, right?”
“Yeah.” Ryan sounded impressed that Quinn was familiar with the area. “You’ve been there?”
“Once, with my girlfriend.”
Careful, Quinn. I could just see it now. Quinn would spill the beans, thinking Ryan’s memory would just be erased. But this slip would be different. There was too much history between Ryan and me. Who knew how many memories this would dredge up in his mind? Who knew how many people he’d tell? I watched Dylan nudge Quinn subtly as a warning.
“You coming, Ry?” a leggy blonde called out. She walked over, draped her arms around him, and kissed his cheek. She was very pretty, but also the polar opposite of me physically—nearly six-feet tall, with a thin athletic frame, seemingly endless curly locks, and blue eyes.
“Yeah.” He smiled as he wrapped his arm around her.
Minerva texted Dylan again, and he turned to Quinn. “Speaking of girlfriends, ours are waiting for us.”
“Hey, man—we gotta take off. Good to see you, Russ.”
“You too,” Russell said.
“Good to meet you,” Ryan said to Quinn and Dylan.
“You too,” Dylan replied.
“Yeah.” Quinn followed.
Ryan nodded briefly before turning and walking away. I couldn’t believe Ryan was actually here—that he’d met Quinn, talked to him.
“We’d better get going,” Dylan stated when we met them at the front gate. “They’re right behind us.”
We wove our way through the crowd and piled into the truck. As luck would have it, we pulled out right as Russell and his entourage walked passed.
“So, you inherited the Defender, huh?” Russell called out, recognizing the truck immediately. “How pissed is Doug?” he asked, chuckling.
“Very.” Quinn grinned from ear to ear. “See ya, man.”
Russell gave us a little salute and turned back to his friends. As Quinn passed them, a nearby street lamp cast some light on Minerva and me in the backseat. Before I even thought to duck, I saw Ryan catch a glance of what I hoped was just my shadowy form. He froze and his jaw dropped open. He quickly blinked a few times and then stared at the window again, but, thankfully, we’d already moved beyond the light’s reach. Ryan simply shook his head as if to dismiss his “vision.”
*
“Interesting end to the night, huh?” Quinn when we arrived at the Falls later.
“You could say that,” I replied.
“Do you miss him?” Quinn asked tentatively, studying my reaction.
“Not the way you think.” I looked him in the eyes. “I miss being able to remember him the way he was before I caught him cheating.”
“And if he hadn’t cheated on you?” he asked even more hesitantly.
“It wouldn’t have mattered in the end.” I took Quinn’s hand in mine. “Ryan’s and my time had come and gone. You’d already won me over with all your sweet-talking and that smile of yours.” I winked. “I was ready to let him go. The cheating just made it easier.”
Quinn wrapped his arms around me and pulled me to his chest, resting his chin on top of my head. “Good,” he murmured.
*
It was July third, and all remained quiet on the Jaegar-Chase front. I paced all day long, gripping my cell phone like it was a lifeline. I must’ve checked it a thousand times. I even had Quinn call me to make sure my line was still working.
This doesn’t mean anything, I thought, trying to calm my nerves. They said it might take a little longer to get Quinn’s blood. It’s only been two weeks, and you gave them three.
Quinn did his best to cheer me up by telling me he had faith the two would pull through in the end. Minerva also jumped on the bandwagon, reiterating the same hopeful sentiments. Even Dylan tried to be optimistic. But their words did little to settle the panic growing within me. By night’s end, all I could think was that Plan A had failed and we needed to focus all our energy on Plan B—or worse, Plan C. We had to buckle down and be prepared to stop a ritual that would destroy Quinn’s soul and turn him into an empty, dark shell of someone I used to love.
9. “m”
It was a beautiful, clear night—perfect for fireworks. We planned to watch the pyrotechnics displays of several towns, including Quinn’s, right from his family’s private beach. The four of us walked down the steps to the lake, each of us carrying something—oversized beach towels, firewood, an old-fashioned, beat-up boom box, a handful of CDs, and a couple bottles of water and some food for Quinn,
Quinn cleared the debris from the previously dug fire pit while Dylan stacked the firewood. Minerva and I arranged the towels to make one large blanket. She sat next to me on one of the towels and wrote her name in the sand with a stick. As Dylan passed by to get the last of the firewood, he carefully erased the “RVA” with his toes so that the remaining letters spelled “MINE.” She looked up at him, and they smiled at each other before he dropped a kiss on top of her head.
“You two seem really happy together,” I noted a few minutes later when the boys went off in search of kindling. “Dylan’s like a completely different person since he’s met you. He seems more focused—more mature.”
“You know, it wasn’t love at first sight when I first met him—not like it was for Quinn and you from what I’ve heard. Dylan totally annoyed me, actually.”
“Really?” I was eager to hear her side of the story.
“Well,” Minerva smirked, “first he scared the living daylights out of me and then he annoyed me.”
I couldn’t help but chuckle in amusement.
“You see,” she continued, “I only get assigned the ‘complicated’ cases due to certain abilities I possess that my colleagues lack. So I walk into my assignments knowing there are heightened concerns and risks, and I’ve been trained to adopt additional precautions and skills some would argue fall outside the scope of my traditional duties as a Watcher.”
“Well, I’m pretty sure Quinn’s case falls into the ‘complicated’ category,” I said lightheartedly.
“Yes, Quinn’s case was right up my all
ey, or so I was told. Generally speaking, Watchers aren’t privy to a lot of background information about our charges when we receive our assignments. Usually, we don’t need it because the humans we’re assigned to watch over already have had three Servants’ attacks on their lives and survived—thanks to you guys.” She nodded in acknowledgment to me. “Our job is simply to make sure there are no loose ends and no demon cheating going on. A walk in the park, right?
“I mean, even most of my cases are pretty uneventful, so I never really cared to hear much beyond the abridged version of what happened before I got a case. But I have to say, I was curious about Quinn’s case when I was assigned as his Watcher. My Handler—that’s the equivalent of your Mentor,” Minerva clarified, “cautioned me to be particularly vigilant with respect to how I conducted myself and carried out my duties on this assignment. I was warned to stay clear of my charge out of concern that he might possess an unnatural ability to sense my presence. And, I was told to watch him like a hawk and to cover his tracks—and mine—as carefully as possible. My Handler also informed me that my charge was involved in something big—something potentially cataclysmic. He said Quinn had been ‘chosen.’”
Chosen. I cringed, thinking back to how Tartuf had used the word to refer to the victims of demonic conversion.
“I didn’t know what that meant until you came along and explained everything,” she went on to say. “No one would tell me anything. To be honest with you, I’m not sure my Handler even knew the answers to my questions, which, looking back, probably only served to make me more intrigued by the assignment.
“I sensed something was off immediately upon arriving in Bloomington,” Minerva continued. “Energy levels in and around Quinn’s perimeter were way off balance and in a state of constant flux—not at all normal for someone who was supposed to be in the clear of another attack. It was almost like Quinn had a band of immortal paparazzi snooping around, monitoring his every move.
“But after a week, nothing tangible had yet to materialize. Still, I knew better than to let my guard down. And then one night, something appeared. It phased in partially, so I only caught a glimpse of its aura before it phased out of view. Whatever it was, it definitely wasn’t a Servant because it left no trace behind.”
“What did the aura look like?” My mind immediately flashed to Ronald. Maybe he’d decided to keep tabs on Quinn while I was detained in the Archives.
“It was peculiar. It wasn’t dark per se, but it wasn’t pure either. It looked, I don’t know … blemished.”
“‘Blemished?’”
“Yeah, it looked kind of like a full moon with its visible craters. I mean, like I said, I only caught a glimpse of it, and a fleeting one at that, but it was nothing I’d ever seen before.”
“Weird.”
“Right?” Minerva nodded her head in agreement. “So here I am, on full alert, unable to get a good feel for the type of spook fest I’d landed myself in, when Dylan just appears out of the blue in Quinn’s apartment the next evening while he was asleep. I immediately knew what he was, but he just seemed a bit too relaxed to be the real deal—as if he didn’t have a care in the world, which is totally uncharacteristic of any Shepherd I’d ever met or heard about. I knew he wasn’t supposed to be there. I was the only one assigned to Quinn’s case—that’s the way it always works, especially since Shepherds and Watchers are not exactly known for working well together. Anyway, I took Dylan down faster than a house of cards.”
“Funny, Dylan omitted that part of the story when he told me how you two met,” I mused.
“Yeah, probably not one of his proudest moments.” Minerva chuckled. “To be fair, he didn’t have a fighting chance against me. Not many do.”
“These ‘abilities’of yours—what are they? How do they work?” I asked, reminded now of her comment a minute ago.
Just then, we heard the boys traipsing back towards the campfire.
“The best way for me to explain is to show you,” Minerva whispered excitedly as a huge grin appeared on her lips.
“Are you sure that’s such a good idea?” I asked.
“Don’t worry, this’ll be fun.” She winked at me and then glanced at Dylan; her smile was positively mischievous now. Before I had a chance to say anything else, Minerva phased out of view, materialized directly in front of Dylan, and kissed him. When she pulled away, he began swaying back and forth slightly with closed eyes. He looked drunker than Quinn had been a couple of weeks ago!
Minerva walked back over to me. “Ready?”
“Ready for what?” I asked anxiously, having absolutely no clue as to what would happen next.
“You’re going to love this,” Minerva smiled and proceeded to touch my hand. Instantly, I felt a wave of energy crash over me. It was like I’d pounded a dozen energy drinks, making my body buzz with a surge of power.
“That’s amazing,” I whispered in awe.
“What’s amazing?” Quinn asked curiously as he glanced back at Dylan in concern.
“I have the ability to drain an immortal’s powers through touch, and I can either absorb what I’ve taken or transfer it to another immortal for them to use,” Minerva explained.
“No joke?” Quinn asked.
“No joke,” she replied.
“Whoa, I bet that comes in handy,” Quinn noted.
“Yes, it does,” Minerva confirmed.
“Just how much power can you drain at any given time?” I asked, still feeling the effects of the Big D energy boost.
“Physically, I’m pretty sure I’m capable of draining all of an immortal’s energy, but I never have. And I don’t want to. It’d be too much power for me to handle.”
“Is it dangerous?” I asked.
“If I draw too much power and don’t transfer or use it right away, then yes. You see, along with immortals’ energy and strength, I absorb their core—their intentions, desires, and drive, whether it is good or evil. The more power I drain from an immortal, the more intensely I feel its core, and the more likely it will influence my judgment, my decisions, and, ultimately, my actions.
“And since I’ve only ever really used my abilities to defend myself or my charge, it’s usually a demon that comes into contact with these fingers.” Minerva held up her hand. “So if I end up draining too much of its life force, I could forget what I’m supposed to be doing and why I’m there in the first place. If I absorbed too much of its power, I could conceivably turn on my charge.”
“The rush—it’s waning,” I noted, rubbing my tingling fingertips together.
“That’s because you only experienced the tip of the iceberg. I only absorbed the equivalent of a grain of sand of Dylan’s life force, and I only transferred you a small taste of that. I, on the other hand, will be riding on a Dylan buzz for the next hour at least.” She grinned.
“That’s awesome,” Quinn remarked. “Have you ever transferred these powers to a human?”
“No, and I won’t.”
“Why not?” Quinn sounded disappointed.
“Because there’s no way a mortal would ever be able to physically tolerate an immortal’s powers—even in the smallest of doses. A human body is just not designed to withstand that kind of energy surge. In fact, the amount I just transferred to Evie could very well kill you.”
Based on the rush I’d just felt, a rush that was only “the tip of the iceberg,” I could imagine how Quinn’s body would be incapable of handling even the smallest of surges.
“How long will Dylan be like this?” I barely finished asking my question when Dylan started to come around, shaking his head a little, stopping only to glare at Minerva.
“Hey!” Dylan harrumphed. “You said you wouldn’t take advantage of me like that again.” He was visibly pouting.
“I think my exact words were I wouldn’t do it again unless it was for a good reason,” Minerva clarified. “I was just showing Evie and Quinn how my abilities work, and I needed an assistant.”
“Assistant,
my ass.” Dylan looked pretty miffed.
“I’m sorry, my love. I won’t do it again without your permission—and this time, I promise. And I promise to make up for my bad behavior later tonight.” She blew Dylan a kiss.
“Promises, promises,” he replied with mock skepticism, but his sour mood seemed to vanish immediately.
Quinn and Dylan built a bonfire that we all sat around, enjoying it in silence. I leaned against Quinn and stared at the flames, allowing myself to be mesmerized by their dance, watching them leap about to the unpredictable rhythm of the wood crackling and popping. I inhaled deeply, allowing the smell of the burning wood to fill me completely. Occasionally, Quinn or Dylan would throw another log onto the fire, and a burst of hot sparks would rise from the fire like a swarm of tiny fireflies migrating up into the night sky. I could’ve stayed in that moment forever. Eventually, however, the fire began to die down, and Quinn stood up and stretched his legs.
“Wow, do my muscles feel stiff,” he stated. “Ever since I quit the team, I’ve stopped swimming as much, and I swear I can feel my body slowly aging.”
“Well, there’s no time like the present. C’mon, old man!” Dylan stood up and raced towards the lake. I could see him morph out of all of his clothes before he even hit the water’s edge and instantly felt the heat in my cheeks. I averted my eyes to avoid looking at him naked. Not a minute later, Quinn joined him. He also bared all before diving into the water, hooting and hollering like a kid.
“Holy crap,” was all I could say, shaking my head and giggling.
“Nice butt,” Minerva commented.
I shot her a look that screamed: “Hey, you’re not even supposed to look at Quinn’s ass much less rate it!”
“I’m just saying,” she added in her defense, shrugging her shoulders.
We sat there and watched the boys race each other in the lake. I could tell Dylan wasn’t holding back as much as he had in the pool the other day. Still, Quinn held his own; he really was a fast swimmer.
“Can I ask you something?” Minerva asked me.
“Sure.”
“Dylan told me—he said you remember everything about your past.”
“He’s right. I do.”
Soul to Shepherd Page 19
